§ Mr. FraserTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will ensure the maximum provision of hedge planting on the boundaries of new and widened roads for which his Department has a responsibility.
§ Mr. WattsThis is an operational matter for the Highways Agency. I have asked the chief executive to write to the hon. Member.
Letter from Lawrie Haynes to Mr. John Fraser, dated 23 January 1995:
The Minister for Railways and Roads, Mr. John Watts, has asked me to write to you in reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the provision of hedges along trunk roads and motorways.The Highways Agency fully recognises the importance that hedgerows can have in integrating roads into the adjoining landscape, and the benefits they can bring to nature conservation. For this reason we are keen to see hedgerows retained, and in some cases restored, along boundaries wherever possible.However, due to the difficulties associated with gaining access to maintain properly boundary hedgerows and fencing, it is our usual practice to provide hedgerows as accommodation works through negotiation with adjacent landowners. We estimate that, on average, around 100km of hedgerow are put back into the landscape in this way each year.Any feature provided as an accommodation work becomes the property of the landowner once the establishment maintenance is complete, usually after three years. Because of this, some landowners are unwilling to accept hedge planting and we are not empowered to offer any inducements to persuade them to do so. In exceptional circumstances, where hedgerows are deemed essential to the integration of the road, and landowners are unwilling to accept hedge planting as an accommodation work, we may therefore undertake to plant hedges and maintain them throughout the life of a road scheme.Advice on the use of the hedgerows in landscape design is included in the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges, Volume 10 (the Good Roads Guide), a copy of which is in the House of Commons library.